Giovanni Greppi

http://site.giovannigreppi.it/index.php/en/

Giovanni Greppi was born in Milan, Italy, in a context of great social dynamism and of international exchanges. At the age of 18, after his studies in Switzerland, he became the assistant of Giovanni Gastel, a refined and prestigious fashion photographe...

http://site.giovannigreppi.it/index.php/en/

Giovanni Greppi was born in Milan, Italy, in a context of great social dynamism and of international exchanges. At the age of 18, after his studies in Switzerland, he became the assistant of Giovanni Gastel, a refined and prestigious fashion photographer; three years later he met Gianni Dova of the nuclearist and spatialist movement and frequented his atelier from 1984 to 1986. In the following two years he moved to Florence, working in the restoration of eighteen century paintings and, at the same time, following a course of etching at the renowned ‘Il Bisonte’, the only studio in Italy where Pablo Picasso had worked. He had, as his tutors, Swietlan Kraczyna and Domenico Viggiano, and a few years later he would himself teach here. From 1990 to ‘91 he alternated between Florence; where he perfected his knowledge of photo-etching with Luis Camnitzer, the Uruguayan artist with a strong commitment to the civil rights movement; New York, where he collected a wide range of material destined to form the nucleus of his later work ‘La Pietà’ and Lake Como, where he ran courses and workshops for artists. From ‘95 to ‘97 Giovanni worked above all in the USA where he organised numerous exhibitions in Miami. His artwork was in the meantime also exhibited in other parts of America and Japan. In 1998 one of his exhibitions in Colombia achieved wide spread acclaim in the press even though only two paintings were on show; the guerillas had blown up the truck on which his works were being transported, save the two paintings he carried with him on his flight. From this whirlwind of his life and experiences Giovanni began to delineate a centripetal spiral, an interior research and a focalisation that resulted, in 2003, to move definitively his home and studio into the hills and woods of Tuscany, from where he continues his research into ethics and art.